“Elephant, swing Stasch, too!”
It was utterly impossible to maintain a severe demeanor and preach morality while hanging to the end of an elephant’s trunk and being involuntarily swung to and fro with clock-like regularity, so the boy at last laughed too. After a while, noticing that the trunk was moving more slowly, and that the elephant intended to put him down, a new idea seized him, and when near one of the elephant’s large ears he held on to it, and swinging himself onto the beast’s head, seated himself on his neck.
“Aha!” he cried, as he glanced down at Nell, “he shall know that he has to obey me.”
And with the look of a lord and master he began to feel around the head of the beast.
“Good!” cried Nell from below, “but how will you get down?”
“That’s very easy,” answered Stasch.
Dropping his legs down over the elephant’s head, he fastened them around the trunk and slid down as from a tree.
“That’s the way I shall get down.”
Now they both began to pull the remaining thorns out of the elephant’s foot, and he submitted very patiently to the operation.
Meanwhile the first drops of rain had begun to fall, so Stasch decided to take Nell back to “Cracow” at once. But an unexpected obstacle stood in their way, for the elephant would on no account part with her, but turned her round with his trunk and drew her toward him. The situation began to be serious, and on account of the obstinacy of the animal their happy play was in danger of ending badly. The boy did not know what to do, for it was now raining harder and a bad storm threatened. Both retreated a short distance toward the opening, but they had only taken a few steps when the elephant followed them.